The Inquisitor

by Gayle Wilson

  It would be impossible for Sean to distance himself from the trauma of his sister’s death and its painfully intimate connection to this ring. Someone else needed to objectively examine the evidence the killer had provided. Not as something personal, but as something that might be valuable in building a case against him. Only the detectives would be able to do that.

  “You’re hurting me,” she said, holding his gaze.

  He blinked, the blaze of anger she’d seen in his eyes suddenly clearing. He freed her wrist, stepping back as he did.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “We have to call Bingham, Sean. We don’t have a choice. We have to tell the police about this.”

  “What do you think they’re going to do?”

  “Examine it, for one thing.”

  “You read the papers. Has there ever been any evidence?”

  “You can’t just assume—”

  “He put this here. Do you think he would take any kind of risk, even the most minute one, that would lead them back to him? Think, damn it.”

  She had. And she’d already reached that same conclusion. So why was she arguing the point?

  “What do you want to do with it?”

  “I want to find out what comes next.”

  “What comes next?”

  “Everything he does has a purpose. He put Makaela’s ring here for a reason. What do you think that was?”

  “To frighten me. To prove he can get into my apartment. To taunt you.”

  She had added the last defiantly. She knew that’s what Sean thought. Obviously, he was right. The ring would have been meaningless to her. Only to Makaela’s brother would it have any significance.

  When he didn’t respond, she added the other conclusion she’d come to. “And to show me he can anticipate what I’ll do.”

  “Anticipate?”

  “When I found the box, I didn’t call the cops. I called you. He knew that’s what I’d do.”

  “He hoped that’s what you’d do.”

  “What’s the difference? He was right.”

  “He isn’t omniscient. Don’t give him more credit than he deserves.”

  Omniscient. All-knowing. She realized she was surprised at his use of the word. Surprised Sean would know it, much less use it correctly.

  Because he isn’t an “officer and a gentleman”? Or because he doesn’t have the same education you do?

  It was the kind of snobbery she had always professed to hate. Yet in Sean’s case she’d bought into it.

  “Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?” she challenged. “That there’s no need to call the police because he won’t have left any evidence on the ring or on the box?”

  “Acknowledging that he’s careful is a hell of a long way from believing he can read minds.”

  “I don’t, but you can’t deny he seems to be very good at reading people.”

  Something about her comment had resonated. She could see its impact in his eyes, although he didn’t respond directly. And what he said instead—

  “You wanted something from me.”

  “What?”

  “Tonight. At the precinct. You asked me for something. I’m asking for something in exchange. Quid pro quo.”

  She had asked him to protect her. Not just to watch her in hopes of catching his sister’s murderer, but to guard her from him. Apparently he was prepared to do what she’d asked, but on the condition that she not call the police about the ring.

  “Why?”

  “I told you. This is personal.”

  He had said before that it was a challenge. Issued by the killer. And directed at him.

  “Then why didn’t he leave the ring in your refrigerator?”

  “He wants to prove he can do both.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  It was if she were in the middle of a game whose rules she didn’t understand. Or a game where there were no rules.

  “He wants to prove he can take you, like he took Makaela. And that it won’t make any difference whether I’m watching you or not.”

  Her first inclination was to think what she’d thought before. He’d lost all perspective about his sister’s murderer. Grief, anger, the need for revenge had combined to unhinge him.

  Still, there was something about the explanation he’d just given that had a kind of perverted logic. Especially when she remembered the phone call he’d received.

  If the killer wanted someone to know about the Cummings girl, why not make that call to the cops? Better yet, to a local reporter, any one of whom would have given the story the widest possible coverage?

  He hadn’t. He’d placed the call instead to the brother of a woman he’d killed almost three years ago. Someone who wasn’t a cop. Someone who couldn’t give him the publicity he craved.

  There had to be a reason for his choice. A twisted one. Or maybe the word she’d used before. Perverted. But there would be a reason.

  She knew enough about organized killers—the FBI classification into which the Inquisitor fell—to know that very little they did was by chance. As she had told the interviewer, the man Sean sought wasn’t insane. He was cruel and cunning and ruthless, but he wasn’t mad, no matter how bizarre the scenario of the ring appeared.

  Was it possible Sean was right? That this had been a challenge to him? And if so, what did that mean for her?

  “So…now you’re offering to protect me?” she asked.

  “Every second of every day. And every night.”

  She opened her mouth to argue there was no need for that. She closed it again with the realization that the same man who had tortured and killed at least fourteen women had been inside her apartment. Inside this very room.

  “And what do you get in exchange?”

  “You say nothing to Bingham or anyone else about that.” He inclined his head toward the box.

  He had offered to give her what she’d asked for. And she should have jumped at it. But something else was going on. He was playing her. There was something…

  “The ring would make them take the threat against me seriously. If he saw it, Bingham would have to admit I’m in danger.”

  The detective had downplayed that idea this afternoon, and because she had wanted desperately to believe he was right, Jenna had let him get away with it. Now she had the proof she hadn’t had then.

  “Maybe,” Sean agreed. “I guess that would depend on your definition of ‘seriously.’”

  An overextended police department, currently engaged in a life-and-death hunt for a missing girl. Or a battle-hardened soldier with a thirst for revenge.

  Her intellect screamed that there wasn’t a choice. Call the cops. They were the professionals. Let them put guards around her apartment. Or, better yet, out at her parents’ house, with its state-of-the-art security system.

  That was the kind of protection anyone with half a brain would opt for. The thing that made the most sense.

  It wasn’t the option her gut was telling her to go with. Not as she looked into the ice-blue eyes of a man who wanted nothing more than to catch the killer who had taken his sister’s life. Given an opportunity, Jenna knew that nothing would prevent Sean Murphy from attaining that goal.

  “I swear to you he won’t get by me,” he said, his voice low and intense. “He won’t do to you what I listened to him doing to Carol Cummings. What I saw he did to Makaela. I promise I won’t let him, Jenna. I won’t let him take you. I swear that to you on my sister’s soul.”

  She had always been someone who followed her head rather than her heart, refusing to let her emotions overrule her common sense. There was nothing logical about letting Sean’s fervor and determination outweigh every other consideration.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I really wish I could help you, but…This is my life we’re talking about.”

  “They can’t keep you safe.”

  “Please don’t say that. It isn’t true, and it isn’t fair.”

  He held her eyes, evaluatin
g. For the first time she let him see in them her fear and desperation. Surely, since he’d seen his sister’s body, he could understand the risk he was asking her to take. She expected him to argue against her decision. To point out its flaws. To make more promises.

  What he said instead threw her.

  “Without me, the ring means nothing.”

  “What?”

  “I never reported that it was missing. I wasn’t sure it was. Even after I’d finished cleaning out the house, I couldn’t be sure Makaela hadn’t let the ring go long before her death.”

  “What are you saying?”

  She knew, of course, but she couldn’t believe he would do this. Despite her refusal to go along with what he wanted, she had trusted him. She had almost come to think of him as a friend. Someone who was on her side. And now…

  “The ring isn’t in any police report. There is nothing but my word to connect it to my sister.”

  “You just told me—”

  “But I won’t tell them. You call Bingham, and I’ll swear I’ve never seen it before. That I was never here. That I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Maybe. And maybe it isn’t ‘fair.’” He mocked the word she’d used. “Neither was having to tell a four-year-old that her mother isn’t ever coming home again. Any belief I ever had that anything in life is fair ended three years ago. I’ll do whatever it takes to get my chance at this guy. Even if that means walking out that door and taking my sister’s ring with me.

  “If that’s your choice, Dr. Kincaid, maybe you’ll get lucky. Maybe he’ll change his mind. For your sake, I hope he does. But for my sake—and for Makaela’s—I’m going to assume that he won’t.”

  Fourteen

  What Sean saw in Jenna’s eyes made him despise himself. She looked as if she’d been stabbed in the back by someone she’d trusted.

  Except I never asked you to trust me. I never made you any promise except this one. And if it comes with a price tag attached, you’re old enough to know that’s the way the world works. You get what you want, and so do I.

  What he wanted, what he had wanted for nearly three years, was a chance to go one-on-one with the bastard who had tortured his sister to death. Nothing had changed about that—nothing ever would—despite the pain he saw in her eyes.

  “All right.”

  After the anger of their last exchange, Jenna’s capitulation had been a little too quiet. Too submissive.

  “So we do this my way?”

  He wasn’t sure why he needed her to put it into words. Maybe because he felt like a bastard for pushing her to this point. Why not go all the way?

  “You’ve seen to that, haven’t you?”

  He had. That had been his intent since he’d opened the box. Not to leave her any other option but to depend on him for protection. And in doing so, give him access to his sister’s murderer.

  “Then let’s get out of here.”

  “What?”

  “He’s probably got a key to this place. He may have used it to provide other surprises you haven’t discovered yet.”

  Her pupils dilated, the black expanding into the circle of brown that surrounded them. That was something she hadn’t considered. Something she didn’t want to think about. Neither did he.

  “Where do we go?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll figure that out when we’re out of here.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  There was no use trying to guess at a timeline. That wasn’t anything they could control.

  “I’d better pack.”

  He had expected that. Just as he anticipated that she’d want to continue to go in to work.

  She hadn’t yet figured out that unless she wanted to make this easy for the Inquisitor, her life was about to change completely. And only if he was successful would it ever go back to the way it had been before.

  “Lead the way.” He made a mocking flourish with his hand toward the front of the apartment.

  She took a breath, obviously as a prelude to arguing that she was perfectly capable of packing her own bag. And then she apparently remembered what he’d just said.

  …other surprises you haven’t discovered yet. It was enough to put an end to any thought she had of objecting.

  She closed her mouth and nodded. As soon as she started toward the door of the kitchen, he reached out and picked up the box that contained Makaela’s ring. He slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

  Despite the lie he’d just told, if this were found in her apartment, the police would put two and two together. Then the hunt they’d frantically begun this afternoon would widen to include another missing woman.

  He’d started to follow her across the kitchen when the doorbell rang. The melodic tones seemed more fitted to a mansion than an apartment, even one as expensive as this.

  It took only a moment for him to recover from its unexpectedness. He sprinted after Jenna, grabbing her arm before she could enter the living room.

  “You expecting someone?”

  She shook her head. “My parents are out of town. And the people I know don’t usually drop in without calling.”

  This could be anything, Sean told himself. Delivery. Wrong address. The cops.

  If Bingham had changed his mind because of the Cummings girl’s disappearance, they might have staked out Jenna’s apartment, which meant it was possible they’d seen him come in through the back. That was a complication he didn’t want to deal with tonight. Not after the lie he’d told her about Makaela’s ring.

  “Stay here.”

  He crossed the room, his steps making no sound on the thick carpet, and put his eye to the peephole. Not the cops, he realized with a surge of relief. At least not uniformed ones.

  The guy standing outside appeared to be waiting patiently for someone to answer the bell. He was half turned, looking at the panorama of city lights spread out below the apartments.

  With his hand, Sean gestured Jenna forward. Then he moved aside, allowing her to assume his place at the peephole.

  She looked out and then quickly straightened. She mouthed, “Co-worker.”

  He raised his brows, questioning, but she shook her head, shrugging her shoulders at the same time. Her bewilderment as to why her unexpected guest was here appeared genuine.

  Sean stepped to the side of the door, jerking his chin toward the knob. After a moment she obeyed, sliding the chain out of its slot and then turning the dead bolt. She hesitated before her fingers closed around the knob, glanced at him as if for confirmation.

  He gave her a nod of encouragement. After taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

  “Gary? What are you doing here?”

  Her voice held just the right note. Of course, if Sean had read her correctly, she really had been surprised to have this guy turn up on her doorstep.

  Especially tonight. Maybe “Gary’s” motives were entirely innocent, but his being here right now seemed to be a hell of a coincidence.

  “Paul had a charity thing. He tried to reach you and couldn’t, so he asked me to check on you. He wanted to be sure you got home okay.”

  “He asked you to come by?”

  There was a slight hesitation, followed by a laugh. Even to Sean’s straining ears, the sound of the guy’s laughter seemed slightly embarrassed. As did the explanation that followed.

  “I think he meant for me to call. I’m the one who thought coming in person might be a better idea.”

  It was clear from what Sean could see of Jenna’s profile that she wasn’t quite sure how to respond. After a moment she said, “Well, as you can see, I’m here. And I’m fine.”

  “I think Paul felt that with everything that’s gone on this week and with the news this afternoon about the disappearance of the student from UAB, you might find the prospect of the weekend…I don’t know. Intimidating, maybe.”

  “Intimidating?”

/>   “The thought of spending so many hours alone. He just wanted you to know that he’s concerned. We all are. And that any one of us is only a phone call away.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  There was another slightly awkward pause. Sean was willing the guy to just finish whatever he’d come to say and get the hell out of here.

  “So how did things go with the police?” the man on the other side of the door asked, instead.

  “They don’t feel I’m in any danger. They reminded me that lots of people have commented publicly on the killer. It would be impossible for him to target all of us. I think I just let things…get under my skin.”

  “That’s perfectly understandable. Considering. I wanted to apologize if I came across as unsympathetic about the message on your car—”

  “And that was one of them,” Jenna said with a laugh.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Things I let bother me when I shouldn’t have. You were right. That was probably someone’s idea of a joke. It certainly wasn’t anything to get upset about. I just need to step back and put everything into perspective.”

  “If you need help doing that…”

  “What you said yesterday was really helpful. I just wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Not then.”

  “Everybody needs a sounding board occasionally. Even those of us who do this stuff for a living. Everybody in this city is on edge right now. With good reason.”

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard another woman was missing. Not so soon.”

  “The police seem to be pretty far off in their estimate of how frequently this guy is going to strike. Makes you wonder what else they’ve gotten wrong.”

  It seemed a strange thing to say if you’d come to comfort a person who was feeling threatened. Especially coming from someone who was trained in dealing with people under stress.

  Judging by her hesitation in responding, Jenna, too, seemed taken aback. Apparently the guy picked up on that.

  “I’m sure they’re doing all they can,” he added quickly. “It’s just…frustrating.”

  “I really think they are. But, believe me, I do appreciate your and Paul’s concern.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll guess I’ll see you on Monday.”